Concept
Object constancy
The capacity to keep a stable, emotionally invested inner image of the mother, and later of others, which holds together her gratifying and frustrating sides and lasts through her absence, so that the child can be apart from her without being overwhelmed. Heinz Hartmann introduced the term; Mahler made the attainment of libidinal object constancy, together with a consolidated individuality, the open-ended fourth subphase of separation-individuation, beginning in the third year. It differs from Piaget's object permanence, which concerns knowing that things go on existing, in being a matter of feeling as well as of knowledge.
Development
1975
developed by Margaret Mahler
Mahler made emotional object constancy the open-ended goal of the fourth subphase: a stable inner image of the mother that holds up despite frustration and absence. She took over the term, which Hartmann had coined, rather than inventing it.
In The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation (1975)
Relations
- 1975 developed by Margaret Mahler
Mahler made emotional object constancy the open-ended goal of the fourth subphase: a stable inner image of the mother that holds up despite frustration and absence. She took over the term, which Hartmann had coined, rather than inventing it.
Works
- 1975
The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation
The book by Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine and Anni Bergman, published in 1975, is the first full theoretical account of normal separation-individuation. It grew out of the authors' observational research on mothers and young children in New York. It starts from the claim that the biological birth of a human infant and its psychological birth do not coincide. Biological birth is a single visible event; psychological birth is a slow inner process that unfolds over the first three years. Separation is the child's emergence from a symbiotic fusion with the mother. Individuation is the child's taking on of characteristics of its own. After an introduction and a history of the research setting, the book describes the forerunners of the process, normal autism and symbiosis. It then takes up the four subphases one by one: differentiation and the development of the body image; practicing; rapprochement; and the consolidation of individuality together with the beginnings of emotional object constancy. A further part follows five children, Bruce, Donna, Wendy, Teddy and Sam, through the subphases. Reflections follow on variations within the subphases, on the development of separation anxiety, basic mood and early identity, on core identity and the boundaries of the self, and on the significance of the rapprochement crisis. A final section sets out the research method: what data were collected, the reasoning behind the study and the strategies used to analyse the observations as systematic clinical research.
See also
People
References
- The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation1975Evidence for a relation